Our Policies & Standards

Everything we do has an impact on the environment in some way, from planting trees to driving vehicles and office based work.  All of this contributes to our carbon footprint, which Groundwork is working to reduce. We use an Environmental Management System (EMS) to monitor and improve our environmental performance by maximising the positive impact of our activities on the environment and reducing the negative impacts.

We first achieved BS8555 status for its EMS in May 2006, is formally assessed annually, and once again successfully achieved re-accreditation in August 2010. 

The development and ongoing improvement of our EMS gives us the opportunity to look more deeply at the environmental impact of all elements of our work and to assess which aspects could be improved. 

Through this we have identified our most significant impacts (both positive and negative) on the environment: use of electricity, use of vehicles, disposal of waste to landfill and improvement of habitats.

In 2010 Groundwork committed to the following targets. Most of these are ongoing from 2009 when we were able to make some good progress:

  • reduce overall energy use at our Mill Green office in Hatfield by 5% by April 2013
  • reduce overall energy use at our Mill Green office in Hatfield by 1% annually.  UPDATE:  We were unable to reach this target in 2009/10 and in fact our consumption went up. While this may be due to the particularly cold winter months, energy use at our Mill Green office made up more than half of our carbon footprint last year so we have been looking carefully at our energy use to identify more effective ways to reduce this impact in 2010/11.
  • reduce average fuel consumption of Trust vehicles by 2% by April 2010 per staff day/coverage area   UPDATE:  We were able to meet this target in 2009/10 and actual exceeded it 15%
  • adopt and report from a system for measuring and monitoring CO2 footprint .  UPDATE:  A system was agreed in 2009/10 which we will be using to report this year. 
  • increase recycling rate to 90% by April 2010.  UPDATE:  We were close to achieving this during 2009/10, with 17% of the target over the whole year and managing to hit 99.3% in quarter 4!
  • Achieve zero waste to landfill by 2018.
  • Formalise draft environmental checklist/habitat impact recording system. UPDATE:  This system is still in the process of being finalised but will be a very useful tool for monitoring the physical impact of our work.

To assist the implementation of the EMS Groundwork reviews its Environmental Policy and working procedures annually. 

We also run activities to raise environmental awareness for staff, partners and suppliers, and are formalising a Sustainable Purchasing Policy and developing a database and procedures to help us make use of the most suitable suppliers and contractors in terms of their locality and environmental commitment. 


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Vehicles & Transport

Quality standards achieved